Product: PathEngine SDK 5.10 Released, Licenses Added

The creators of the PathEngine SDK, a toolkit for implementing intelligent agent movement based on a 'points of visibility' pathfinding solution implemented over arbitrary 3D ground meshes, have released a new version of the software, introducing performance improvements for pathfinding around dynamic obstacles. Key features in this new 5.10 version include a new graph search core, which improves the performance for pathfinding queries. PathEngine officials note that this allows for significant performance improvements for queries against dynamic obstacles, which they say “changes the fundamental performance characteristics of the search and how search times scale as dynamic obstacles are added.” The update also includes several bugfixes, as well as a move to Visual Studio 2005 and to DirectX 9 for the test bed. A complete list of the changes introduced in this latest version can be found on the official change log. The PathEngine SDK is built around an implementation of points-of-visibility pathfinding on three-dimensional ground meshes. The approach enables PathEngine to provide both pathfinding and collision in tight integration against a single agent movement model that takes agent shape into account and supports overlapping geometry, with dynamic obstacles directly integrated into this movement model. Additionally, PathEngine has also added to its list of clients by signing The Creative Assembly (Total War series) for a yet to be announced title for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as to 3D and 2D design and animation firm 3d-io. PathEngine has also extended an academic license to Dongguk University in Korea.